Ted, Deker, congratulations.
Your work has secured your place in the "Forged in Fire" final.
When you arrived here, you forged a signature
blade of your own design.
Now we're sending you home to forge
an iconic weapon from history--
the tabar.
It's not a sword.
The tabar is a battle ax originating
from Persia, Armenia, India, and surrounding cultures.
Usually made entirely of metal, it has a strongly curved blade
and a hammerhead pole that was often
decorated with inscriptions.
The light metallic handle is what makes the ax
unique and durable in battle.
During the 17th and 18th centuries,
the tabar was a standard weapon of the mountain
warriors of India, Afghanistan, and what is now Pakistan.
With its double edged blade and piercing spike,
it was an unrelenting weapon of war.
This fierce weapon is featured in the iconic film series
"The Lord of the Rings."
You will have five days at your home
forge to complete your work.
At the end of five days, you will
return and present your tabar to our panel of judges.
Only after they've submitted those weapons to a series
of brutal and dynamic tests will they
declare one of you the "Forged in Fire" champion
and the recipient of a $10,000 check.
Good luck, bladesmiths.
We'll see you in five days.
My name is Ted Thompson.
I split my time between knife making and tattooing.
Been a knife fanatic my whole life,
and I just started blacksmithing to see if I could.
Today, I'm going to work on the handle.
There's a lot to think about on getting everything
put together the right way.
Right now it's just a really, really long eye poker.
I decided to make an asset out of an eight
pound sledgehammer head.
It's a very good, high impact steel.
I want to be able to chop a car in half with this thing.
So-- I'm going to do an asymmetrical double headed.
One blade's going to be a little bit heavier than the other.
I'm [inaudible] the metal so it spread
wide so I can start building the beards of the blade.
Awesome.
Cool profile too.
I don't have a forge big enough to fit the ax fully assembled.
So I used the front of the forge and my cutting torch
and got it up to critical [inaudible]..
And I quenched one side and then the other.
Sweet.
Yep, she's hard.
It'll be ready to go.
I'm Deker.
I work as a computer security consultant.
Blacksmithing and knife making is sort of a sideline
that I do as a little bit of therapy.
Planning on doing some pattern rolling for this project.
If it's worth making, it's worth making in Damascus.
This piece here is going to turn into a long bar
of steel similar to this.
That'll then get cut up into sections
so I can stack multiple layers together in a billet to weld.
Time to get this steel starting to look less like a lump
of stuff and more like an ax.
Inside the mind of a madman.
I'm going into the press to do the very first [inaudible]
operation.
Defining moment.
I start to squish.
And just that right there probably saved me 45 minutes.
Definitely a little more sexy than what
I left with yesterday.
Now I've got the spike in the forge.
I've got to get that drawn out.
Good gravy.
This spike is going to make us heavier than hell.
I'm behind what I had set myself for a schedule.
I've got a lot to figure out, and I've
still got a lot to do tomorrow.
I certainly hope nothing goes wrong,
but failure is not an option.
Let's go kill something.
Sweet.
That's done.
Come hell or high water, that's it.
Bladesmiths, this is the kill test.
The tabar's three sharp sides allows
for three times the chances of killing an opponent
in the heat of battle.
To test the lethality and function of your weapon,
I will test all three sides by chopping
at this animal carcass.
Ted, you're up.
Are you ready.
Heck yeah.
Let's do this.
Well, Ted, the design of your blade
really digs into the carcass.
The hooks grabs everything that's in there
and rips it right out.
Balance is a little bit heavy, but it
will do a lot of destruction.
This weapon, sir, will kill.
Awesome.
Good job, sir.
Thank you.
Deker, it's your turn.
You ready?
Let's cut some bacon, Doug.
Let's do this.
Yes.
Well, Deker, your edges are very sharp.
As you can see what it did, it pretty much went
to cut all the way through.
The feel, though, is a little bit rounded for the handle.
But nonetheless, it's light.
So I can generate more power to control it.
This is a weapon that will kill.
Good job, sir.
Thank you.
I'm going to pass things off to Dave for the next test.
All right, gentlemen.
It's time for the strength test.
Ted, you're up.
Are you ready?
I'm ready.
All right.
All right, 3, 2, 1, engaging.
You put a really good crease in the shield,
and that's a heck of a chop you just chopped in in hardened
oak of this barrel.
A little bit of a roll right up here on this edge
that hit the shield.
And the shaft of the ax looks perfectly straight.
Didn't flex at all.
Well done.
Thank you.
All right, Deker.
You're up.
Let's tap a keg.
All right, 3, 2, 1, engage.
Son of a bitch.
Well, Deker, your spike sheared
off right at that rivet point.
Yep.
You put a good crease in the shield.
[inaudible] you put a good cut in the barrel.
The edge of the ax here that hit the barrel,
you just see a little coloration, some shiny spots.
The side that hit the shield, doesn't look like any damage
at all.
But that spike coming off--
well, that's a problem.
At the moment when that spike fell, my heart just sank.
Gentlemen, you both put in a lot of work on your tabars.
But in this arena, there can only be one "Forged in Fire"
champion.
Ted, you are the "Forged in Fire" champion.
Deker, your weapon did not make the cut.
Congratulations.
[inaudible]
Ted, congratulations.
You are the "Forged in Fire" champion
and will be receiving a check for $10,000.
Good job.
Awesome.
Thank you.
I joined this competition to see if I
had what it took to make a better
weapon than three other guys.
And I did it.
And that makes me happy.
Props for putting "Forged in Fire--"
- Yeah. - --on your blade.
And Persian around here says "caution-- sharp edge."
Nice touch.
When I'm working with a bunch of guys I really respect,
they're going to push the quality that I do.
It pushed me a lot.
That's what I enjoyed about it.